Bitcoin glossary: Top 70 – Every blockchain and cryptocurrency phrase you need to know.

51.Seed Phrase

When you create a cryptocurrency wallet, you’ll be given a 12-word seed phrase. Each time you log into your wallet on a new device, you’ll need to use your seed phrase. Never give your seed phrase to anyone. 

52.Sharding

Sharding distributes network load across a blockchain, allowing for more transactions to be processed per second. This sounds dry, but it’s extremely important. Ethereum will integrate sharding next year, which will make using it cheaper and much less environmentally damaging. 

53.Shitcoin

A shitcoin is an altcoin that provides no utility, either a memecoin or an ineffective altcoin. Read more.

54.Silk Road

Silk Road was an online black market that was shut down by the FBI in 2013. It’s where many people got their first exposure to cryptocurrency, as bitcoin was a popular payment method for the site’s illegal wares. 

55.Smart contract

A smart contract is a digital contract that executes itself if the required conditions are met. For instance, if Wallet X sends 0.08 ether to Wallet Y, Wallet Y sends NFT Z to Wallet X. They’re most commonly used to automate transactions, but can also be used for more sophisticated purposes such as flash loans. 

56.Stable coin

Stable coins are cryptocurrencies that are pegged to the US dollar. These include Tether and USDC. Their purpose is to allow cryptocurrency traders to keep their tokens in a crypto ecosystem without experiencing the volatility of bitcoin and ether’s price movements. 

57.Staking

Certain cryptocurrencies allow you to stake a lump sum of tokens in exchange for receiving a percentage of that lump sum at regular intervals for as long as it’s staked. For instance, Token X may give you a 10% monthly return on any stake above 5,000 tokens. In that case, you’d deposit 5,000 tokens in exchange for receiving 500 of Token X each month. This is a passive income investing strategy: In the above situation, it could take 10 months to recoup the initial 5,000 tokens after which time each monthly payment of 500 Token X would be pure profit (assuming the value of Token X remains steady). 

Bitcoin does not offer to stake, nor does Ethereum — through ether eventually will when it adopts Proof of Stake.

58.TLT

Short for “think long term.”

59.This Is Gentleman

The phrase originated from a 2014 Reddit thread on r/bitcoin where the overly excited poster titled the thread “This is gentlemen” instead of “this is it gentlemen.” It’s since been used as a sarcastic remark whenever good Bitcoin news is shared.

Usage of this phrase has died down in recent years, but it’s too funny to not share. 

60.Token

Tokens are blockchain assets that come in many forms. Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin are a type of token. Other types include governance tokens, which grant the holder voting rights in a DAO or service, or utility tokens, where access to a service is granted in accordance with the number of tokens held.